Sunnyvale will have a $15 minimum wage much sooner than most of its California counterparts, much to the chagrin of local business owners who say the fast-tracked increase will put city businesses at a competitive disadvantage.

The city council voted 4-1, with one councilman abstaining, April 12 for the wage increase, which will hit $15 by 2018. The increase will come in increments: Minimum wage will rise to $11 per hour by July 1, then to $13 by Jan. 1, 2017, and will hit $15 by January 2018.

The current minimum wage in the city is $10.30 per hour.

Earlier this month, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into a law a statewide plan to raise the current $10 per hour minimum wage to $15 by 2022.

Not only will Sunnyvale’s minimum wage shoot up sooner, but the council added a provision that will see the wage rise along with the prior year’s inflation. That increase could kick in Jan. 1, 2019 and on every New Year’s Day thereafter.

The increase will correspond to the previous year’s Consumer Price Index based on the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose regional index. If there’s no increase in the Bay Area Consumer Price Index, the minimum wage will remain the same for that year.

Business owners, particularly those from restaurants, attended the April 12 meeting to voice opposition to the plan. Representatives and owners from Dishdash, Faultline Brewing Company, Country Gourmet, Fibbar MaGees and other Sunnyvale businesses urged the council to stick with the statewide timeline.

Christa Shaw, speaking on behalf of Faultline Brewing Company, told the council that when the city established a minimum wage of $10.30 per hour, that it cost the business $80,000 in 2015. She argued that the city was not factoring in the extra wages restaurant employees bring in from tips.

“We prepared for that increase by raising our prices. We suffered on Yelp, we suffered on any blog you can imagine,” Shaw said. “We were on an upward increase in income until 2015, in which we suffered a 3.2 percent decrease in income. This increase will eat our entire profit margin. We will go from being a profitable restaurant to a restaurant in the red. We’re asking you to consider total compensation and how tipped employees fit into that.”

Emad Ibrahim, owner of Dishdash and Dish-N-Dash, said he was in favor of seeing a minimum wage increase, but wanted more time for the business community to prepare.

“El Niño has caused price fluctuations in produce and meat. To increasing water and PG&E, everything has been passed onto us and we have to swallow” cost increases” he said.

Residents, however, spoke passionately in favor of the $15 wage, citing the increasingly high cost of living in Sunnyvale. Louise Auerhahn, director of economic and workforce policy with Working Partnerships USA, said that families are leaving the area due to housing prices.

“We can’t solve this by looking at just one side of the equation; we need to create more housing, but also make sure the work actually pays. People who work hard should have a shot at paying their rent and live where they work,” said Auerhahn.

Sunnyvale engineer Michael O’Brien told the council that those with high-paying salaries, such as himself, were part of the reason costs were going up.

“I understand that running a business is difficult in this economy. Why should the workers pay for that? Everything else is rising. Why doesn’t labor go up? This is a special place, this is Silicon Valley. There’s a lot of money here. I think people can pay higher prices,” said O’Brien.

Hendricks said that while he was not opposed to raising the minimum wage, he was concerned with how soon the wage would rise. Davis countered by saying that San Jose recently raised the minimum wage from $8 to $10 without seeing a decline in small businesses.

Martin-Milius and Griffith both said that due to the prosperity in Silicon Valley, minimum wage earners should see their wages rise.

“While I appreciate what the state has done, we can’t wait for six years to act. We aren’t [Los Angeles] County or Bakersfield. They aren’t experiencing increases like we are. We have an obligation to deal with it, and we should decide as a community to do something,” said Griffith.